


You are the Greatest Good I'll Ever Get

by weaslayyy



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24143071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: Early on in their partnership, Lucifer and Chloe attempt to understand each other.
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88





	You are the Greatest Good I'll Ever Get

“Lucifer,” Chloe says, four hours into a stakeout that has the two of them supposedly watching an empty parking lot, “I’m not the one you’re supposed to be looking at.” 

Chloe hears the sound of a bag crinkle, followed by a crunch. “No one’s coming, Detective,” Lucifer says around what must be his fourth bag of Cool Ranch Puffs. “Unless--” He brightens, but it’s been weeks since Lucifer started following Chloe for his own amusement and she knows him just well enough to know what he’s about to say. 

“No, Lucifer, we’re not going to have sex.” 

“Really, Detective,” Lucifer sighs, “I will never understand why you insist on depriving yourself like this. The Douche can’t be that good a lay.” 

Chloe, who can count on two hands the times she’s had sex with Dan the last few years and on one the times it's actually been satisfying, refuses to comment. While she isn’t above a white lie or two to survive in polite society, it feels weird to offer one to Lucifer who is so proud about never doing so himself -- for better or worse, when Chloe is with him she has to content herself with the truth. 

(For better, a part of her screams, the bit that hides behind gates that only Trixie can now unlock. The bit that, even after years of acting classes and media training is still John Decker’s daughter who punched camera lenses at 19, is still the Detective who stuck to her story about what she saw at Palmetto and has both a demotion and a husband who lives in his own apartment for all her trouble.) 

“You’ve been staring at me a weird amount though,” Chloe says, trying to reroute the conversation away from her sex life -- they’ve got another hour before they can call it a night. “I don’t know what’s got you so interested.” 

“I’ve been trying to figure you out for days,” Lucifer responds, casually licking the cool ranch dust off of his index finger and thumb. “But without the benefit of my abilities, I’ve found it nearly impossible.” 

Chloe hums, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “Right,” she says, refusing to flush at the near pornographic way he is servicing his own thumb. “Your ‘abilities.’” 

“You’ve seen the evidence for yourself, Detective. Every other one of you humans I can gauge in an instant, but you....” He doesn’t seem to know how to describe Chloe’s ability to not get sucked into his weird mind trick, and even Chloe who’s never been one for weird paranormal tricks can see how it might be frustrating. 

“It’s not just you,” she offers, “I tried hypnosis years ago, and it didn’t work for me then either.” 

“My abilities are nothing so simple,” Lucifer scoffs, but it doesn’t seem like his heart is really in it. “Besides, I’m not really interested in your immunity. Just...” Again, he trails off. Strange, for a man Chloe usually can’t get to shut up. 

“Just what?” 

Lucifer....squirms? Chloe can hear the sound of his expensive suit-fabric shifting against the cheap fabric of her cruiser’s seats. “Just you,” he says quickly, and so low Chloe’s almost certain that she misheard. 

“Me?” 

“Yes you,” Lucifer snaps, “infuriatingly obtuse woman that you are. I can’t get a read on your desires, and without them I have no way of understanding you at all!” 

For a second, Chloe’s blown away at the implication. “Would knowing what I want really tell you that much?” 

“Of course,” Lucifer says, almost insulted at Chloe’s doubt. “An individual’s deepest desires are their motivation. Choosing to pursue or deny those desires is how we all define our lives.” 

Chloe’s not sure she’s convinced. “You’re telling me someone defines their life based on their desire to own a Bichon?” 

Lucifer laughs. “I suppose the question for that person might be what that Bichon represents, for ownership of one to be their deepest, most secret desire. But in general the desire to be respected, to be wealthy, to have a beautiful person hanging off your arm,” Lucifer smirks, and Chloe knows she’s not going to like what he’s about to say “-- to orgasm for the first time, these are all things that guide how someone might live their life, no?” 

Maybe. “But what does that have to do with me? I’m pretty easy to figure out, I think.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Lucifer slip almost accidentally into a genuine, faint smile. “On the contrary Detective, I think you might be the most complicated person I’ve ever met. Intelligent, passionate, selfless. Committed to principle, even when it interferes with your career and alienates you from your peers. It makes no sense.”

Chloe flushes, glad that she has the excuse of the stakeout to avoid eye contact. No one has ever spoken of Chloe like Lucifer does, not since her Dad died so many years ago. She doesn’t know what it says about her that Los Angeles’s biggest perv is the only person nowadays who sees Chloe as more than a hot body or a stick in the mud. Her voice, when she speaks, comes out at a pitch higher than she usually uses when at work -- the soft voice that she saves for her little girl. “You think it’s weird that I actually want to do my job?” 

He snorts. “I suppose I do. You know as well as I how rare true competence is within your organization.” 

Oh does she ever. But Lucifer isn’t done yet. 

“I suppose I could understand it if you were a follower of my Father because then you might be willing to take on discomfort now in hopes of a reward in the future, but you’re an atheist!” 

“You don’t think atheists can be good people?” Chloe’s voice is sharper than it should be at what she knows is a pretty basic question, but Dan’s parents were Catholic and that had always been something they’d loved to bring up at the dinner table, especially after Trixie had been born and _not_ baptized. John Decker hadn’t needed church to be a good man, and neither did John Decker’s kid -- besides, it wasn’t like someone named after the Devil was going to pass judgment on whether Chloe believed in God. 

“I suppose atheists have as much chance as any other,” Lucifer says, wary now that he can see he’s hit a nerve. Chloe forces herself to relax, to trace the outlines of the fence along the border of the lot. It’s strange, how in just weeks Lucifer has managed to pull reactions out of Chloe that her co-workers haven’t seen after years -- she knows that Lucifer has seen her naked, both in person and on screen, but Chloe has never felt as exposed as she does in moments like this. 

Lucifer clears his throat. “Many, many people feign goodness, Detective, most of them under the guise of serving my Father so no, I don’t question the idea that an atheist can be good. Rather, I question the idea that any of you humans can truly be good at all.” 

Oh. For some reason, hearing that makes Chloe’s heart ache, just a little. “That’s...really bleak, Lucifer. You’ve never met a good person before?” 

“Is it true goodness if done in order to service a desire for fame or adulation, or in hopes of a cosmic reward? Or if it’s done while hiding a desire for wealth, or another man’s wife?” 

Chloe swallows. These are questions for a pastor or a philosopher, not an ex-actress with nothing more than a high school degree. She focuses on what she actually can engage with. “So you’ve been trying to figure out if I’m a good person?” 

But again, Lucifer surprises her. “No, Detective. If ever I’ve met someone I might consider truly good, I think that would be you. What I’m trying to understand is why.” 

Chloe’s eyes are wet as she tries to swallow but finds that she can't get around the lump in her throat that must be the size of a bowling ball. She’s spent so much time these last few months trying to figure Lucifer out -- the man who insists that he is the actual embodiment of all evil, but works hours at Chloe’s side without, according to Lieutenant Monroe, actually pulling a salary. He makes up excuses to justify his presence every time: he’s bored, he says one day, or that he’s trying to save Chloe herself from the vending machine sandwiches. But beneath it all, Chloe knows that he cares, that he truly, desperately wants to do something meaningful with his skills instead of waste it all on partying or having sex with the nearest willing bodies. She knows, better than anyone, what it’s like to realize that doing what you’ve always done isn’t good enough anymore. Someone, at some point, hurt Lucifer so badly that he’s convinced that he can’t possibly be a person who does good things or is deserving of someone else being good to him in turns. The revelation of Lucifer’s scars had been overshadowed that night by Chloe shooting him in the leg, but later she had closed her eyes and seen them again, huge and snarled against the skin of his back and she wonders if having them carved into his flesh had been the moment where he’d finally believed his family’s lies. 

But even after all that he’s reaching out, in his own convoluted Lucifer way. He’s trying to redefine himself, to work with Chloe, and bring bad guys to justice even if he insists on calling it punishment. He’s chosen, for whatever bizarre reason, to use Chloe as a way to explore re-engaging with the wider world, and Chloe takes the weight of that responsibility seriously. 

“It’s just the right thing to do,” she says finally, not sure how else she can describe the way she feels wrongness burn inside her, has felt it burn since she was told that her dad had been shot while getting her a sandwich. Maybe there’s a part of her still trying to honor her Dad’s memory, but it’s been years and Chloe’s job is about Chloe now even if it started out as something else. Maybe there’s a part that says she wouldn’t be able to look Trixie in the eye if she did what so many other cops did, looked away here, took a bit of cash there, but being a mom isn’t what’s keeping Chloe on the straight and narrow. 

Even to Chloe, it seems like a weird Catch-22 -- that she tries to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Who decides what that right thing is in the first place, she wonders. She can’t imagine what someone like Lucifer will make of it. 

“Bizzare,” Lucifer says, opening up another bag of puffs. He almost sounds disappointed, and Chloe’s heart sinks at her inability to put what she feels into the words he needs. But before she can try again, a car with the exact details they’re looking for peels into the parking lot three hours after the drop was initially supposed to happen. Chloe never caught breaks like this before she started partnering up with Lucifer -- maybe there really is something to that old saying about the Devil's own luck. 

Lucifer’s scrambled out of the car before Chloe can even think to stop him, voice piercing the former silence of the night like a bullet. “Hello,” he calls out, opening the suspect's car door and dragging him up and out one-handed. “Mr. Murderer? My name is Lucifer Morningstar. What is it that you desire?” 

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first attempt at writing lucifer fic after lurking like a dumbass for....just under a year now. for some reason no matter how hard I try there's something about their voices that I feel like I'm not nailing so if anyone has constructive (or not constructive!) criticism please please share! 
> 
> i'm kind of fascinated with their season 1 dynamic where they're becoming friends and learning how to rely on each other, trust one another, and be vulnerable in ways that they each have never been before! i'm definitely a huge deckerstar shipper but i think there's something lovely about how solid the foundation of their friendship has always been, strong enough to whether the will-they-won't-they aspect of their romance. the pacing is super weird because originally this was supposed to be part of a much longer fic, but i was so uncertain about how i was writing them that i figured i might as well try to consolidate it into a shityish one-shot and see how it fared in the court of public opinion. also, lol, totally unbetaed so all errors are on me. but like i said, if you have any feedback i would /love/ to hear from you and if you'd like to find me on tumblr im @ parlegee. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading! i hope you and all of your loved ones are faring as well as possible. <3


End file.
